Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

Tavi snorted. “You’ve broken my bloody arm. How do you expect me to-”

Max let out a roar and swept the practice weapon at Tavi’s head.

Tavi barely threw himself back in time to avoid the stroke and he struggled to regain his feet, balance wavering because of the pain and the heavy shield on his left arm. “Max!” he shouted.

His friend roared again, weapon sweeping down.

Magnus’s rudius swept through the air and deflected the blow, then the old Maestro shouldered into Tavi’s shield side, bracing him long enough to get his balance underneath him.

“Stay in tight,” Magnus growled, as Max circled to attack again. “Your shield overlaps mine.”

Tavi could hardly make sense of the words for the pain in his arm, but he did it. Together, he and Magnus presented Max with nothing but the broad faces of their shields as a target, while Max circled toward their weak side-Tavi.

“He’s faster and has more reach than me. Protect me or neither of us will hold a sword.” Magnus’s elbow thumped swiftly into Tavi’s ribs, and Tavi pivoted slightly, opening a slender gap in the shields through which Magnus delivered the quick, ugly chop Tavi had been less than enthused about learning.

Max caught the blow on his shield, though barely, and when his reply stroke came whipping back, Tavi stretched his shield toward Magnus, deflecting the blow while the Maestro recovered his defensive balance.

“Good!” Magnus barked. “Keep the shield up!”

“My arm-” Tavi gasped.

“Keep the shield up!” Max roared, and sent a series of strokes at Tavi’s head.

The boy circled away, staying tight against Magnus’s side, and the old Maestro’s return strokes threatened Max just enough to keep him from an all-out assault that would batter through Tavi’s swiftly weakening defenses. But Tavi’s heel struck a stone, he misstepped, and moved a little too far from Magnus’s side. Max’s rudius clipped the top of Tavi’s skull, hard enough to send a burst of stars through his head despite the heavy leather helmet he wore for their practice bouts.

He fell weakly to one knee, but some groggy part of his brain told him to keep his shield close to Magnus, and he foiled a similar strike Max directed at the Maestro on his return stroke. Magnus’s rudius flashed out and tapped Max hard at the inner bend of his elbow, and the large young man grunted, flicked his rudius up in a salute of concession, and stepped away from the pair of them.

Tavi collapsed, so tired that he felt he could barely keep breathing. His wounded wrist pounded in agony. He lay there on his side for a moment, then opened his eyes to stare at his friend and Magnus. “Through having fun?”

“Excuse me?” Max asked. His voice sounded tired as well, though he was barely panting.

Tavi knew that he probably should keep his mouth shut, but the pain and the anger it begat paid no attention to his reason. “I’ve been bullied before, Max. Just never figured you’d do it.”

“Is that what you think this is?” Max asked.

“Isn’t it?” Tavi demanded.

“You aren’t paying attention,” Magnus said in a calm voice, as he stripped himself of the practice gear and fetched a flask of water. “If you got hurt, it was a result of your own failure.”

“No,” Tavi snarled. “It is a result of my friend breaking my arm. And making me continue this idiocy.”

Max hunkered down in front of Tavi and stared at him for a silent minute. His friend’s expression was serious, even… sober. Tavi had never seen that expression on Max’s face.

“Tavi,” he said quietly. “You’ve seen the Canim fight. Do you think one of them would politely allow you to get up and leave the fight because you sustained a minor injury? Do you think one of the Marat would ignore weaknesses in your defense out of courtesy for your pride? Do you think an enemy legionare will listen while you explain to him that this isn’t your best technique and that he should go easy on you?”

Tavi stared at Max for a moment.

Max accepted the flask from Magnus after he finished, and drank. Then he tapped the rudius on the ground beside him. “You cover your shieldmate no matter what happens. If your other wrist is broken, if it leaves you exposed, if you’re bleeding to death. It doesn’t matter. Your shield stays up. You protect him.”

“Even if it leaves me open?” Tavi demanded.

“Even if it leaves you open. You have to trust the man beside you to protect you if it comes to that. Just as you protect him. It’s discipline, Tavi. It is literally life and death-not just for you, but for every man fighting with you. If you fail, it might not only be you who dies. You’ll kill the men relying on you.”

Tavi stared at his friend, and his anger ebbed away. It left only the pain and a world full of weariness.

“I’ll ready a basin,” Magnus said quietly, and paced away.

“There’s no room for error,” Max continued. He unstrapped Tavi’s left hand from the shield and passed him the water.

Tavi suddenly felt ragingly thirsty and began guzzling it down. He dropped the flask and laid his head on the ground. “You hurt me, Max.”

Max nodded. “Sometimes pain is the only way to make a stupid recruit pay attention.”

“But these strokes,” Tavi said, frustrated but no longer belligerent. “I know how to use a sword, Max. You know that. Most of these moves are the clumsiest-looking things I’ve ever seen.”

“Yes,” Max said. “Because they fit between the shields without elbowing someone behind you in the eye or unbalancing the man on your right or making your feet slip in mud or snow. You get an opening for maybe half a second, and you’ve got to hit whatever you’re swinging at with every ounce of force you can muster. Those are the strokes that get the job done.”

“But I’ve already been trained.”

“You’ve been trained in self-defense,” Max corrected him. “You’ve been trained to duel, or to fight in a loose, fast group of individual warriors. The front line of a Legion battlefield is a different world.”

Tavi frowned. “How so?”

“Legionares aren’t warriors, Tavi. They’re professional soldiers.”

“What’s the difference?”

Max pursed his lips in thought. “Warriors fight. Legionares fight together. It isn’t about being the best swordsman. It’s about forming a whole that is stronger than the sum of the individuals in it.”

Tavi frowned, mulling the thought over through a haze of discomfort from his throbbing wrist.

“Even the most hopeless fighter can learn Legion technique,” Max continued. “It’s simple. It’s dirty. It works. It works when the battlefield is cramped and brutal and terrible. It works because the man beside you trusts you to cover him, and because you trust him to cover you. When it comes to battle, I’d rather fight beside competent legionares than any duelist-even if it was the shade of Araris Valerian himself. There’s no comparison to be made.”

Tavi looked down for a moment, then said, “I didn’t understand.”

“You were at a disadvantage. You’re already a fair hand with a blade.” Max grinned suddenly. “If it makes you feel any better, I was the same way. Only my first centurion broke my wrist six times and my kneecap twice before I worked it out.”

Tavi winced at his own wrist, now swelling up into a large, plump sausage of throbbing torment. “Naturally, it only stands to reason that I would learn more quickly than you, Max.”

“Hah. Keep that talk up, and I’ll let you fix that wrist on your own.” Despite his words, though, Max looked concerned about him. “You going to be all right?”

Tavi nodded. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Max. It’s just…” A little pang of loneliness hit Tavi. It had become a familiar sensation over the last six months. “I’m missing the reunion. I miss Kitai.”